Sunday, November 14, 2010

Sunny Sunday Girls' Brunch {Caffe Boa}

We arrived safely in Seattle just about an hour ago despite quite a lot of turbulence at the end of the flight. Barracuda Tacos saved the night once again. With unpacking and laundry plus all our normal pre-work week tasks to do before kicking off a hectic Monday, cooking dinner was out of the question. Tonight I'll place an Amazon Fresh order and tomorrow we'll start to detox from all the excess of a very fun weekend.

Since arriving in Phoenix on Thursday night, I'd tried to connect with my cousin, his wife and their daughter who live in Scottsdale. The stars weren't aligning for us to meet, so even though my cousin had a work conflict keeping him from joining us, I was thrilled that our midafternoon flight left time for me to have brunch with his wife and daughter while B met his friends at Starbucks. I was on a bit of a tight schedule and they were kind enough to meet me at Caffe Boa across the street from our hotel.

The temperature today was the warmest we had while in Tempe. The evenings since we arrived were outright cold. B and I don't make the mistake of taking sunshine for granted, so I was happy to sit on Caffe Boa's patio.

The Urbanspoon rating for Caffe Boa is fairly low at 53%, but I heard our hotel concierge recommend them and someone in our group mentioned reading positive reviews on Yelp. I was a bit surprised that at 10:15AM on a Sunday morning, we were one of only two tables (the other was inside). I might just be used to the Seattle brunch scene and not at all used to living in a primarily college neighborhood, but it seemed odd that they were so empty.

The girls arrived just a couple minutes after I did. I was a little disappointed that there weren't really any kid friendly options for sweet Isabella, but she made due nicely with their chocolate chunk olive oil pancakes. I had the Angelina Nova: eggs, cream cheese, honey smoked salmon and chives served with grilled tomato and a half baguette.

It was good, but really not great. The eggs were on the dry side and I only have myself to blame for ordering salmon in the middle of the desert. Isabella's pancakes were better. I'm sure of this. Her mom and I had a bite.

Service was extremely slow, especially considering how few customers they had, but our server was very nice. As were most of our food experiences this weekend, the wonderful company made the experience. I hadn't seen Amy in almost three years and this was my first time meeting Isabella. She is a beautiful little girl who entertained us with her enthusiasm for her pancakes and her adorable little bursts of toddler-speak. I only wish I could have seen the whole family and spent more time with them.

We're happy to be home, but exhausted. As is true of any good vacation, it will be a couple of days before we really get back into our normal routine. I imagine we'll be settled back in just in time to leave for Portland Friday morning. So begins the holiday season!

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Why Thursday?

Nearly every Thursday night for the past 4 years, my (food sidekick) boyfriend, B, and I visited a new Seattle restaurant. We chose Thursday because it's the unfortunate 24 hours we have to endure before reaching the promised land of Friday. These are the stories of our Thursday night restaurant adventures (and occasionally on other days and in other places).